Staff Reviews

The Secrets Between Us by Thrity Umrigar is the much-anticipated sequel to The Space Between Us(2006) and it is a treasure. The novel picks up after Bhima has lost her long-term job as a servant for Sera Dubash due to a secret that is exposed, making the situation untenable for both women. Bhima is completely adrift and desperate to find work so she can continue to support her granddaughter, Maya, through college, with whom she lives in a Mumbai hovel.

Unexpected circumstances present Bhima with opportunities to develop a business for which she is well-suited from her years bargaining at the markets for Sera’s family. Supplemented by part-time work in the household of a lesbian professional couple, she takes on a business partner – a destitute woman, Parvati, who is a pariah across all of the castes of Mumbai. As Maya’s life expands through a growing friendship and emotional support of her grandmother’s new employers, Bhima’s business takes off, and all of the women’s lives are enriched.

The updated situations weaving through this novel are relevent in today’s cultures everywhere. As usual, Ms. Umrigar’s piercing humor and brutally descriptive prose (you can almost feel the heat and closeness of Bhima’s slum), are balanced by the gentle, accepting nature of her main character. But not as usual, she has written an ending that leaves no questions unanswered. If you haven’t read The Space Between Us, you will still easily be able to pick up the story in this sequel. But fair warning, after reading this one, you’ll want to re-read or buy the first book!

— Karen McCue

July 2018 Indie Next List

“This wonderful novel—loosely a sequel to The Spaces Between Us—is the rich, moving story of an amazing friendship, one that would never have occurred under the old restrictions of India and in the new India feels its tentative way. The lives of Bhima and Parvati are ones of unbelievable poverty and struggle, but the dignity and richness their friendship manifests took my breath away. A bit Dickensian in the best ways, this novel had me in tears several times. These women are two I will not soon forget.”
— Michael Coy, Third Place Books (Ravenna), Seattle, WA

Description

Bhima, the unforgettable main character of Thrity Umrigar’s beloved national bestseller The Space Between Us, returns in this triumphant sequel—a poignant and compelling novel in which the former servant struggles against the circumstances of class and misfortune to forge a new path for herself and her granddaughter in modern India.

"It isn’t the words we speak that make us who we are. Or even the deeds we do. It is the secrets buried in our hearts."

Poor and illiterate, Bhima had faithfully worked for the Dubash family, an upper-middle-class Parsi household, for more than twenty years. Yet after courageously speaking the truth about a heinous crime perpetrated against her own family, the devoted servant was cruelly fired. The sting of that dismissal was made more painful coming from Sera Dubash, the temperamental employer who had long been Bhima’s only confidante. A woman who has endured despair and loss with stoicism, Bhima must now find some other way to support herself and her granddaughter, Maya.

Bhima’s fortunes take an unexpected turn when her path intersects with Parvati, a bitter, taciturn older woman. The two acquaintances soon form a tentative business partnership, selling fruits and vegetables at the local market. As they work together, these two women seemingly bound by fate grow closer, each confessing the truth about their lives and the wounds that haunt them. Discovering her first true friend, Bhima pieces together a new life, and together, the two women learn to stand on their own.

A dazzling story of gender, strength, friendship, and second chances, The Secrets Between Us is a powerful and perceptive novel that brilliantly evokes the complexities of life in modern India and the harsh realities faced by women born without privilege as they struggle to survive.

About the Author

Thrity Umrigaris the author of seven novels Everybody’s Son, The Story Hour, The World We Found, The Weight of Heaven, The Space Between Us, If Today Be Sweet, and Bombay Time; a memoir, First Darling of the Morning; and a children’s picture book, When I Carried You in My Belly. A former journalist, she was awarded a Nieman Fellowship to Harvard and was a finalist for the PEN Beyond Margins Award. A professor of English at Case Western Reserve University, she lives in Cleveland, Ohio.

Praise For…

“The women at the heart of this novel inhabit the harsh world of the urban Indian poor, and struggle separately and together for dignity and survival. Thrity Umrigar has written a moving human tale that vividly brings to life both the women and the city of Mumbai.” — Salman Rushdie

“Umrigar’s writing is vivid and elegant in its specificity, and the story is as resilient as its characters.”— Minneapolis Star Tribune

“[The Secrets Between Us] provides an almost “Siddhartha”-esque experience of sharing a character’s spiritual journey, as the plot takes Bhima and Parvati to places where they must question their preconceptions, search their souls and ultimately change.”— Newsday

“[Umrigar’s] amazing cast is coupled with shining prose and a plot that consistently startles and gratifies. This splendid tale should appeal to all readers with open hearts, regardless of their familiarity with the previous work or the culture of Mumbai.“— Publishers Weekly

“The Secrets Between Us is one of those books I want to shout about from the rooftops... [for] everyone to experience the depth and beauty of the author’s writing.”— All About Romance

“[W]onderful…. [Umrigar] knocked it out of the park with this one. Her writing is beautifully descriptive and her characters are absolutely fabulous.”— BermudaOnion’s Weblog